The Book by J.B.A. Sharras about the Waterloo Campaign in F.M. Dostoevsky’s Novel “The Idiot”

Abstract

The article examines the role of the book by the outstanding military historian, Colonel J.B.A. Charras (1810–1865), “The History of the Campaign of 1815. Waterloo” (1857), in F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” (1868). Dostoevsky bought this book in 1867 in Baden-Baden while working on his new novel. The political emigrant Charras, who had died just two years before the creation of the novel “The Idiot,” was by that time widely known in Europe and in Russia as one of the most principled and authoritative leaders not only of the French but also, in a broad sense, of the European democratic movement. The literary and political journal “Vremya,” published in the early 1860s by the brothers M.M. and F.M. Dostoevsky, was one of those that published materials about him. The article examines the biography of Charras as a military and political figure and his opposition to the regime of the Second Empire under Napoleon III. The first Russian translation of the work of the French historian was published in the same year 1868, as the novel “The Idiot”. Two characters of the novel, admirers of Napoleon (Prince Lev Myshkin and General Ardalion Ivolgin), critically mentioned the book of Charras during their conversation about Napoleon’s stay in Moscow in 1812. The characters of “The Idiot” have different assessments of the figure of the French emperor in comparison with Charras himself, which is due to their different views on history in general and the role of personality in history. It shows that the fictional story of General Ivolgin in the novel is largely based on the work of Charras, which is thus one of his main sources.

Keywords

• “the idiot
• ” f.m. dostoevsky
• j.b.a. charras
• napoleon i
• napoleon iii
• the napoleonic myth
• the napoleonic legend
• the napoleonic wars
• waterloo